David Allen Grier

While he may be best known for wacky TV sketch-comedy characters, David Allen Grier's three-decade career in showbiz is considerably broader and deeper than his '90s work on In Living Color. There, you'll remember his fey film critic Antoine Merriweather and failed bluesman Calhoun Tubbs. But before and since his association with the Wayans brothers, the Yale-trained actor has worked extensively in theater, film, stand-up comedy, and even print. (He wrote an outward-looking memoir, Barack Like Me: The Chocolate Covered Truth, in 2009.) Grier is a gifted mimic of figures including Ray Charles, Al Sharpton, and Colin Powell; and if he does a Barack Obama impersonation, we're hoping to see it. Earlier this year, he played Sporting Life in a Broadway revival of Porgy and Bess—yes, he can sing, too. And, since it's David Mamet week in the Wire, it's worth noting that Grier earned a Tony nomination starring in the playwright's Race three years ago. From soundstage to Broadway, he'll have plenty of backstage stories to tell. DANA SITAR